§ 2. From the Decree *Vigilanti*

Fourth ordinary reserved excommunication. They incur excommunication:

1. Booksellers and other lay merchants collecting Mass stipends in any way whatever, who repay to the priests to whom they commit Masses to be celebrated not money, but books or other merchandise.

2. Likewise lay persons handing over Mass alms received from the faithful or from pious places to booksellers, merchants, and other collectors, whether they receive or do not receive anything from the same persons by name of reward.

96. It does not excuse from incurring the penalty that the number of Masses corresponds to the collected alms without any diminution having been made, or that poor priests lacking Mass alms are assisted in such a way, or that the profit from the exchange of merchandise with alms is expended not for the private advantage of those collecting, but for the use or increase of pious institutions and good works.

a. By the decree Vigilanti, May 25, 1893, several actions concerning Mass stipends are punished by penalties, either because through them commerce is exercised, or because an occasion is easily furnished for illicit commerce. But the penalties are:

a. For priests (cardinals and bishops are not comprehended), suspension from divine things simply reserved to the pope;

b. For clerics who are not priests, suspension from orders received and inability to receive higher orders, likewise simply reserved to the pope;

c. For lay persons, excommunication reserved to the bishop.

b. By the decree Ut debita, May 11, 1904, the same penalties are renewed and the actions prohibited under censure are determined more accurately, so that the following incur the censure:

a. Those knowingly handing over obligations of Masses and their alms, received from the faithful or from pious places, to any persons whatever, even ecclesiastical men, who request Masses not taxatively that they may celebrate them, whether by themselves or through priests subject to them, but for any other end, although best; likewise those knowingly accepting them.

b. Those separating the alms of manual Masses and Masses after the manner of manual Masses from their celebration, or commuting them into other things, or diminishing the alms, namely by not handing them over to the celebrant whole and in their own kind.

c. Those selling books, sacred utensils, or any other things whatever, or buying them, and entering into associations with newspapers and periodicals by means of Masses to be celebrated or celebrated, whenever this latter thing passes into a usage by habit and turns into support of some commerce.

d. Those subtracting anything from the alms of Masses which the faithful are accustomed to hand over to more celebrated sanctuaries, so that provision may be made for their dignity and ornament.